This time, everyone has decided that Woodward must really be a Democratic ideologue because the latest book skewers the president. But wait: People thought the 63-year-old veteran Washington Post reporter was a toady for Republicans after his last two books on the Bush White House.

Fact is, Woodward is apolitical. True, his father was a prominent Republican judge, and Woodward quoted Sen. Barry Goldwater in a high school speech. He even voted for Richard Nixon in 1968, just a few years before he helped bring him down.

The Raleigh News and Observer ran a series on religion and politics in the South a few days ago, based on that survey we saw reported last week: God as Fearsome Father?, with related stories.

In The Nation, a story on the Virgina senate race, focusing on Jim Webb: Virginia's Rumbling Rebels. Webb, author of some interesting historical novels and the book about the Scots-Irish I really want to read, Born Fighting. is running against the infamous Sen. George Allen but is not catching up very fast. Maybe because he is a rebel:

Webb's gonzo campaign--chaotic, underfunded and featuring a candidate who refuses to pander or even, at many campaign appearances, to so much as crack a smile--grew out of his exasperation with Allen's unwavering support for George W. Bush's Iraq adventure. Webb had been warning against military intervention in Iraq, insisting that it would destabilize the Middle East and spawn dangerous anti-Americanism, since the late 1980s....Webb might have been a hellacious soldier--one of the most highly decorated to return from Vietnam, in fact--but he has never been a go-along guy, to say the least. His stint as Navy Secretary, for instance, ended with Webb abruptly resigning after just ten months, protesting the Reagan Administration's refusal to fully fund the 600-ship fleet he insisted was necessary.